The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood

Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.

Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend

Willie Mays is arguably the greatest player in baseball history, still revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball's bold expansion to California. He was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Now, James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from 1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years, win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied.

Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss

Since their breakthrough championship season in 1923, when Yankee stadium opened, the New York Yankees have been baseball’s most successful, decorated, and colorful franchise. Home to Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Jackson, and Mattingly; and later Torre, Jeter, Rivera, and Rodriguez, the team has been a fixture in our national consciousness.

Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty

Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.

Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and "The Worst Baseball Team in History"-The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers

Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-'70s.

The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter

Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America’s game.

The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

In the 34 years since his retirement, Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (rbis, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least 30 home runs per season15 times, becoming the first player in history to hammer 500 home runs and 3000 hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball's immortal figures.

Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball

No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. From the moment he bought the team in 1973 for $10 million, Steinbrenner's monomaniacal pursuit was to restore the most fabled franchise in baseball history to its former glory. Today the New York Yankees are worth more than $1 billion and are once again world champions.

Ball Four: The Final Pitch

When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four.

The Yankee Years

Joe Torre is the most successful and most respected baseball manager of the modern era, steering the Yankees to six American League pennants and four World Series championships. When he left the team in 2007, it was front-page news around the country. Famously diplomatic during his tenure with the Yankees, Torre finally speaks out about what it was like building and managing the dynasty during those 12 glorious and tumultuous years.

Soon to be a major motion picture, Seeing Home: The Ed Lucas Story is the incredible true tale of a beloved Emmy-winning blind broadcaster who refused to let his disability prevent him from overcoming many challenging obstacles and achieving his dreams.

Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero

He was one of the greatest figures of his generation, and arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all time. But what made Ted Williams a legend, and a lightning rod for controversy in life and in death? New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville delivers an intimate, riveting account of this extraordinary life.

One Last Strike

After 33 seasons managing in Major League Baseball, Tony La Russa thought he had seen it all - that is, until the 2011 Cardinals. Down ten and a half games with little more than a month to play, the Cardinals had long been ruled out as serious postseason contenders. Yet in the face of those steep odds, this team mounted one of the most dramatic and impressive comebacks in baseball history, making the playoffs on the night of the final game of the season and going on to win the World Series despite being down to their last strike - twice.

Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci

As Sports Illustrated’s lead baseball writer since 1993, Verducci has witnessed the achievements of the game’s greatest heroes and told their inspiring stories with unmatched passion and sophistication. He has enriched SIs readers with an insider’s perspective on the game, examining subtle shifts in the ever-changing balance between pitchers and hitters, between slumps and streaks, between sacred records and the athletes trying to break them. Despite his deep affection for baseball, however, Verducci has never shied away from the hard truth about the game.

56: Joe Dimaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports

Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to left field. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

Amazon Customer says:"A fascinating look at both DiMaggio and the streak"

The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams

Williams was the best hitter in baseball history. His batting average of .406 in 1941 has not been topped since, and no player who has hit more than 500 home runs has a higher career batting average. Those totals would have been even higher if Williams had not left baseball for nearly five years in the prime of his career to serve as a Marine pilot in WWII and Korea.

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East

In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.

The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth was more than baseball's original superstar. For 85 years, he has remained the sport's reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century...more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville brings his trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the Babe.

Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, The Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age

Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels - and lifelong friendship - between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field. Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families, for whom the game was the only escape from a lifetime of brutal manual labor.

The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball's Power Brokers

In the fall of 1992, America's national pastime is in crisis and already on the path to the unthinkable: cancelling a World Series for the first time in history. The owners are at war with each other, their decades-long battle with the players has turned America against both sides, and the players' growing addiction to steroids will threaten the game's very foundation.

Stan Musial: An American Life

When baseball fans voted on the top 25 players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn’t make the cut. This glaring omission - later rectified by a panel of experts - aised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time? In Stan Musial, veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally gives this 20-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated contemporaries....

Pedro

Before Pedro Martinez was the eight-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, and World Series champion, before stadiums full of fans chanted his name, he was just a little kid from the Dominican Republic who sat under a mango tree and dreamed of playing pro ball. Now, in Pedro, the charismatic and always colorful pitcher opens up for the first time to tell his remarkable story.

Amazon Customer says:"Entertaining story is marred by subpar narration"

Great Baseball Writing

When Sports Illustrated was launched in 1954, baseball was, indisputable, the national pastime, its stars America's epic heroes, its rivalries the era's mythology. As baseballs fortunes rose and fell over the next 50 years - and then rose again to new heights, drawing more than 65 million fans to ballparks in 2004 - the game never failed to produce great drama and inspired storytelling.

Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball

John Feinstein is one of the most influential sportswriters of the last three decades. In his masterful new audiobook, Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Feinstein delivers a fascinating account of the mysterious proving ground of America’s national pastime, pulling back the veil on the minor leagues of baseball.

Publisher's Summary

Jane Leavy, the acclaimed author of the New York Times best seller Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, returns with a biography of an American original: number 7, Mickey Mantle. Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.

Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author's weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961 - the same boy who would never grow up.

As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself.

"I believe in memory, not memorabilia," Leavy writes in her preface. But in The Last Boy, she discovers that what we remember of our heroes - and even what they remember of themselves - is only where the story begins.

And a real must read for those of us who came of age in the era of "The Micks" pivotal years. I appreciate that Jane Leavy didn't glorify Mantle in her book-she wrote the truth-both the good and the terrible, the heartbreak of a man who's body was worn down by the sport he loved and who finally found himself - the real Mickey Mantle.

I grew up in a Dodger family..my parents were from New York, transplants to Los Angeles in the 40s....we listened to baseball all spring and summer-didn't matter who was playing-our big multi band radio was tuned in to a baseball game. When the Yankees played USC pre season in 1951, my dad had 2 tickets and I got to go..I saw the home run that was the start of Mantles baseball life and I got an autograph in my pink autograph book..and as an awkward 11 year old girl with her own mitt, I never forgot the way he smiled at me and said "Girls can't play baseball!". I developed my first crush...Mickey was it for me. Rooting for the Yankees was as bad as it could be in my family but I spent the next 35 years following my hero.

This book is great for those of us who never saw the dark side of Mickey Mantle and for baseball fans who didn't experience the game when it was played for fun-before the big salaries and bonuses, when kids played until dark on vacant lots or at school yards.

The writing and story and wonderfully done, though I wasn't really impressed with the narration. Still, like all personal histories it's about the person. This book is better than the several other Mantle books I've written-it's honest and doesn't glorify Mantles bad disposition or sexist ways-things that were never printed in newspapers back then. There was a protection of sorts around sports heroes and politics in the middle years of the country.

Leavy provides a personal and well researched insight into the Mick. She also provides a very interesting insight into the culture of the 50's and 60's which allows the reader to better understand why Mantle was personally out of control. A very well written biography of the painful inner truth of a great baseball hero.

When I was 12, I became a Yankee fan and caught the tail end of Mickey Mantle's career. I knew of him as one of the greats, but was also aware he had many flaws. This book tells the story of a man who had the potential to be the best and seemed to have it all - but due to circumstances never lived up to this true potential. This is not a baseball story, but the story of a tragic hero who never really understood why people liked him so much.

I grew up a Mickey Mantle fan, this book didn't take any of the Mick's lore away from me and in the end probably added to it. You see the flawed human, true enough but you see what could have been without an outfield drain cover and lifetime of drinking. What he accomplished in spite of those issues makes him all the more remarkable as an athlete.

I have been an audible user for a decade and this is far and away the worst book I have ever listened to - suggested by someone who, obviously, never read it. Appropriate for the 30 people in the world who have the time to listen to 30 pages describing the debate about a homerun in the early 1950's to come to the conclusion that it was fantasy (duh!!) and it gets worse from there - lots of Mickey Mantle anatomy, hero adulation despite lots of evidence to the contrary. I had to stop before I started screaming. I know that folks who sit around and reminisce about baseball numbers can be pretty boring, but putting it into a book with a subtitle "the end of America's childhood" is not only pretentious but inaccurate. A good bedtime book for insomniacs - better than the dictionary.

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